ATLANTA — Matt Kuchar has two runner-up finishes this year, including at The Barclays a few weeks ago. He has nine top-10 finishes. But he hasn’t posted a win this season.

Yet, because Kuchar ranks so high in FedExCup points — he’ll enter this week’s TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola in fifth place — one unusual scenario exists: There is a slim mathematical chance that he could finish second at East Lake and wind up winning the FedExCup.

The possibility of it happening is remote. And frankly, Kuchar would rather not win the FedExCup without winning an event this year.

"I hope that’s not the way it works out," Kuchar said Wednesday. "I think the way Jim Furyk did it last year, winning the TOUR Championship, winning the whole thing — that’s the way to do it. I’d like to do it that way.

"If it works out that I don’t win and I still win the FedExCup, that will be a fun topic to try to figure out how to prove myself or prove that being worthy."

As one of the top five players in points, Kuchar controls his own fate in regards to the FedExCup. Should he win the TOUR Championship, he would automatically win the FedExCup. That’s the most likely scenario for Kuchar.

Should he finish second, he would need the rest of the leaderboard to fall in the correct order. Five other players also could mathematically win the FedExCup this week without winning the TOUR Championship: Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Luke Donald and Brandt Snedeker.

Those five, unlike Kuchar, have already won at least one TOUR event this year. Simpson, Johnson and Rose have combined to win the first three Playoffs events.

"It would be a strange feat," Kuchar said about winning the FedExCup but not a specific tournament. "It … certainly would be a fun one to talk about, read your articles and listen to the radio shows — and yeah, take that $10 million right to the Royal Bank of Canada."